Roaring Fork Valley residents held marches on Sunday in reaction to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend.
Hundreds of attendees showed up in Paepcke Park in Aspen and Sopris Park in Carbondale, denouncing the white supremacists that marched through Charlottesville over the weekend causing violent clashes and killing an opposition protester. Howie Wallach is the chair of the Pitkin County Democrats, who organized the event in Aspen.
“Yesterday's events shocked just about everybody, and people felt helpless on one hand and outraged on the other and didn't know what to do,” Wallach said. “And so that’s the time to have a little gathering.”
Senior federal officials are calling the weekend’s events domestic terrorism. Wallach said he has met people in the valley that sympathize with the white supremacists, and the purpose of Sunday’s rally was to show they are not welcome in Aspen.
“Terrible things are happening in the country because there are so many people who feel empowered now to just come out in public. They were there before, it’s not that they weren’t there they just couldn’t be so publicly proud,” said Wallach of racists sentiments in the country.
The solidarity marches were organized through the local “Indivisible” groups on Facebook: Indivisible Roaring Forkand Indivisible Aspen.